The rapid heating of water to high temperature is necessary in many industrial settings. Most commonly, such settings are found in food processing and manufacturing. The prime use in these industries for such apparatus is in the washing and cleansing of food processing equipment. For instance, breweries and dairies require apparatus capable of rapidly heating water to high temperatures. This need is not easily fulfilled because of the sudden shifts in water flow rate needed in such facilities.
Common and widespread problems are extant with the use of existing water heating. Among the more common problems are that extant water heating apparatus cannot heat water regardless of water flow fluctuations and cannot supply hot water upon demand without at least some time lag during which the apparatus heats water to a temperature other than the desired temperature. Approaches in the prior art neither successfully overcome these problems nor attempt to solve them in the manner of the instant invention. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,335,250, a steam supply valve 16 is controlled by thermostatic means, not by a feed forward pressure differential as in the instant invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,431,132 heats water by gas firing using a gas supply valve, not steam, to heat water. U.S. Pat. No. 3,670,807 holds water in a hot water storage means which inevitably provides a slower heating than the feed forward steam injection system of the instant apparatus. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,879,943, a non-steam heat source is used to heat water in a heat exchanger. Further, this latter apparatus involves combustion not present in the instant invention.
The instant invention overcomes these problems without use of a hot water storage tank or similar device. Using feed forward control and steam injection, the apparatus of this invention virtually instantaneously heats water when signaled to do so. Such heating is accomplished substantially regardless of flow rate. It is therefore an object of the instant invention to provide extremely rapid heating of water. It is further an object of this invention to heat water at substantially any flow rate within the maximum capacity rating of the specific apparatus. Yet another object of this invention is to provide heated water by steam injection. Still another object of this invention is to maximize the safety and minimize noise and vibration of the apparatus of this invention by reducing agitation caused by the intermixing of steam and water.